SOLIDWORKS: Custom Material Library

Materials are an important way to gain extra insight into your design. This could be through analyzing weight, the center of gravity or possibly as part of a simulation. None of these things are possible without assigning your parts material properties. But what do you do if the built-in SWX library doesn’t have the material you are looking for or the property values that your vendor sent you don’t match up with what is in the software? Well, it’s time to go and make some custom materials.

Inside any Part of Assembly File, right-click on the Material in the Feature Manager Design Tree and go to “Edit Material“.

Custom Library (i.e. the blue folders): Right-click anywhere in the Left Pane of the Material Dialog Window and Select “New Library“.

This is basically just a folder/organization tool for Categories of materials. It is named and then saved as an externally referenced file (meaning it can be shared with other users).*

All Material settings can be adjusted including material properties, appearance, and any custom properties or information you want to be associated with the material.**

All Categories and Materials can be copy/pasted into a Custom Library and edited. This is particularly useful when only a few material properties are needed to be changed.

Notes:

*Custom Libraries must be saved in a location specified by File Locations>Materials Databases in your system options (you should be automatically prompted to save in the default Custom Material Library location). This list can be added too and can include network locations to synchronize Material Libraries.

**Some options (such as creating plots to define temperature dependent properties) will only be available if the Simulation Add-in is activated.

About Sean Marrs

Sean Marrs is an Applications Engineer at our office in Beaverton, Oregon. Sean has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the California Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo. When he isn’t in the classroom, Sean spends his free time running around in the forest and drinking great micro brews!